Help With Settings for Group Flash Photo

[fautox1977]

Ah, double flash power and drop iso by one step was my suggestion. The half power flash setting is helpful because of shorter recycle times and higher iso won’t matter in the test shots.

Are you telling him/her to use direct flash in full power, or even half? Does that work for your shots?

[nesgran]

Direct flash at full power would be awful, bounce is clearly the way to go unless you have other ways of diffusing. Lighting a group with a single speedlight is never ideal after all.

[Rise Against Fauxtogs]

First I want to say thanks to everyone who posted their solutions for this problem.

I ended up having to take an indoor photo of about 30 people in a confined space (an office).  They were in about 4 or 5 rows, so I needed a lot of depth of field.

I stood up on a chair and set my camera to manual exposure, ISO 1600, f6.3 at 1/60th. I was using a Canon 5D Mark 2 with the flash mounted on the camera. First I tried using the Gary Fong (which is supposed to “spread the light”) and that didn’t work. Incredibly, what worked was popping up the little white plastic bounce card on the flash and bouncing the light off the ceiling. The photo came out perfectly exposed and everyone is tack sharp from front to back.

Success!

Thanks again for all your ideas!!

[fautox1977]

First I tried using the Gary Fong (which is supposed to “spread the light”) and that didn’t work

That is the most expensive piece of Tupperware in the market 🙂

I used it on several occasions but I cannot say I was completely happy with the results.

[Rise Against Fauxtogs]

Someone gave me the Gary Fong Tupperware a few years ago and I can honestly say that despite trying it many times I have never found it to be anything but useless.  The only time it ever came in handy was when I was shooting a photo of some kids who thought it was so funny looking that they ended up laughing and I got great shots. I told them that I keep my snacks in it for when I get hungry.

And yet Gary Fong is a gazillionaire selling all manner of plastic and rubber “light spreaders.”

[Worst Case Scenario]

I have a Fong, I haven’t used it since I got a dedicated flag gun, but on metz it gave some great results.

[Author]

Posts